Tag: garbanzo beans

I don’t think I need to tell any of you that I’m a huge fan of leafy greens. I try to eat them every day (some days, I fail, but that’s just between us). I toss spinach into my lunch. I add salads to dinners. If there’s a way for me to squeeze chard into a meal, you know I’m doing it. Heck, lately I’ve been noshing on collard green wraps filled with chickpeas, tahini, lemon juice, capers, and other goodness. Continue reading “Leafy Greens: Gluten-Free Superfood!”

I am a huge fan of really big salads — the kind of salads made famous by Elaine Benes on Seinfeld — but they are often boring. Really boring. Pretty much every menu of every restaurant has the same suite of salads, with some minor variations: Cobb Salad, Caesar Salad, Boring Green Salad, Chinese Chicken Salad, Taco Salad.

Sure, sometimes you get something wild like a Kale Caesar Salad, but when it comes to the world of restaurants, salads are predictable and generally not that exciting. And by not that exciting, I mean not all that flavorful — usually these salads rely upon the salad dressing to carry all the flavor work. This, as we all know, is how a salad goes from reasonably healthy to a calorie bomb in under thirty seconds. Continue reading “Salads, Little or No Lettuce”

I confess to a chickpea (or garbanzo bean, if you prefer) addiction. I also like lima beans. Or pretty much all beans. But chickpeas are definitely my favorite. Maybe because they are perfect for all kinds of things, from salads to hummus.

When I’m hungry for chickpeas (and I’m always hungry for chickpeas), I simply heat some olive oil in a skillet, toss the dry, cooked chickpeas into the pan, and let them roast away over medium-high heat, stirring to get roasted brown spots all over. I don’t want them crispy — that’s an entirely different recipe! — but I do want them browned in spots and full of roasted flavor.

While the chickpeas are doing their thing on the stove, I whip together a lemony vinaigrette and chop parsley. When the chickpeas are done, I toss them in the vinaigrette, add the parsley, adjust the seasonings, and serve.

This ridiculously easy recipe will impress your family and friends. They’ll never know how simple it really is!

Is there a better food than falafel? No, I say, there is not. Except maybe mashed potatoes. It’s a close call.

Finding gluten-free falafel out in the wild is hard. Making it at home is so easy, you won’t miss going out for this wonderful food at all. As a bonus, falafel makes a great vegan option for those times you need one.

One huge note, that I’ll repeat in the Notes section as well: do not use canned chickpeas when making falafel. They have absorbed too much liquid in the can, and will create a heavy, less fluffy falafel. You will thank yourself for soaking your garbanzo beans the old-fashioned way!